


“no, no, it’s my treat.”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [3]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Canon Era, Christmas, Churros, Detectives, Fluff, Hardy Boys, M/M, Secret Relationships, Yuletide Treat, mentions of prostitution in relation to a case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-16 18:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21275471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: It the Winter holidays of 1937, and George and Alexander spend a day out in London, enjoying churros, murders in newspapers, the heating and new editions of Hardy Boys in Foyles, and each other’s company.Canon EraWritten for the third prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.





	“no, no, it’s my treat.”

**Author's Note:**

> Featuring my headcanon that George calls Alexander ‘Hastings’ (like Daisy calls Hazel ‘Watson’) because he fancies himself as a Hercule Poirot rather than a Sherlock Holmes.

London is bitingly cold in the midst of Winter. Sleet showers the streets of the city and hail peppers the windows, and the small amounts of snow are trampled into a churned-up sludge.

To my left, George’s observations are far more analytical. In a low whisper than makes me shudder, he points out with no particular effort how the man walking to our right is a man who used to be rich but has fallen from it due to an addiction to drink and gambling. The woman across the street is a drunk with a love for cats, the unassuming businessman in front of us is having an affair with his secretary, and the well-dressed young man making his way into the Underground is an opium addict.

Around us, the city sings and Christmas shoppers throng around us, two teenage boys talking in whispers about crime as the rest of London exclaims about the state of the modern world. “It’s 1937!” they say, and George rolls his eyes. “The most modern and progressive year ever seen in human history.”

Leaning into my ear, George says, “Where my father is from used to be a million times more advanced and scientific than the west will ever be.”

I nod, for I have heard this before. “Humans have a horrific built-in mechanism against those different from them.”

“I don’t punch every white person I see!” George replies, indignant. “That’s utter rubbish!”

“It’s not built-in,” I correct, wincing at my own wording. With a smile, George squeezes my shoulder to let me know it’s alright. “It’s instilled in white people born in the west, by their ancestors and by the media and by their peers. They tell us to hate people like you.”

“Luckily you are the exception.”

We pass over one of the many bridges that stretch across the Thames and stop in the centre as so many people are doing to gawk over the side of the bridge and out into the harbour, lit by the watery late-afternoon sun.

“George!” I exclaim, pointing out towards a landmark I know to be the hospital. “I say, is that your father’s hospital?”

As usual, the prim and quiet English people around us turn to find the source of the loud American who has disturbed their irritatingly quiet English serenity. When they see us, it is not me they are shocked at.

I hear three people say three different evil words while looking at George as if he is the scum of the earth. Beside me, George reacts. He does not violently lash out or say horrid things back at them, but his neck muscles tense and he sucks in his lips, and tears glimmer in his eyes.

“Let’s go, George,” I say, summoning my best evil eye to shoot at the offenders.

“Alex,” he whispers as we walk away, so quiet I can barely hear it. 

“Yes?”

He sounds small, afraid. Small and afraid does not suit George Mukherjee. “I sometimes like to convince myself that racism doesn’t exist. It’s a childish game of imagination. However, even if I do that, there is still something about me to discriminate against. It’s never-ending.”

My heart aches for George when he says this. Being homosexual and Indian in London is possibly the worst combination of things to be. Even though there are Indian faces like his dotted about the London Underground, there are fifty horrifyingly ignorant people for every one person like George.

When we have left the bridge, I turn to George and say, “I have an idea for you.”

“What is it, Alex?” His voice is tight.

“Oh, bother you! Come here!” I drag him towards the warmth of the stall of a street vendor selling churros, and I fiddle in my coat pocket for my clean handkerchief. “Take this. It’s clean. I’m going to buy churros.”

“We don’t serve your kind here,” says the vendor, eyeing George.

“I’m not buying anything,” he snaps, glaring up at the vendor in his practised regal manner.

Tutting, the vendor points away from his stall. “Well then, don’t hang around here, you coloured ruffian!”

I hand over my money and take more delight than I should in walking over to George with a cardboard container of brown sugar-coated churros drenched in chocolate. The vendors' jaw drops when he sees I’m sharing with the very person he turned away, and he shouts after us as we bolt off. 

We stop on one of London’s wide and open pedestrian-only boulevards. “Alex!” George says in astonishment, his eyes glittering with the thrill of adventure. “You… why, _ you _!”

I chuckle. “His _ face _!”

George straightens up again. “If you keep doing that shit, you’ll be arrested,” he says, face drawn into seriousness. “I hope you know that.”

“You’ll bail me out.”

* * *

We scout out some stairs that lead up to the flats above a china shop and sit down to eat the churros that I obtained perfectly legally, even though it feels like I broke some serious rules. 

It’s impossible for us to eat in silence no matter where we are. Together, we discuss and unpick the latest murder that’s been splattered between articles about Germany in the London papers. George stretches the paper over our knees and I obscure a picture of the German führer with the box of churros.

“The man who killed her,” George says, looking at the photo of the victim, “Was soliciting her.”

“I had that thought!” I say, pointing at where it lists the amount her boarding house cost. “There is no way her wages amounted to this. She must have had to solicit men to make ends meet.”

“Good thinking, Hastings,” he says and draws my attention to the photo once more. “Look here. She’s holding a bag of nuts and a silk handkerchief. There’s no way a woman so poor could afford those niceties.”

“Oh!” I swallow the piece of churro I’m eating before speaking. “Maybe the murderer wasn’t soliciting her. Maybe he was trying to solicit her but she was scared. Why else would he offer her those things instead of money?”

George’s entire demeanour changes with a realisation. “I know! Remember the case from March?”

I nod. During Easter, we had been trying to puzzle out a kidnapping and ended up having to pretend to want to solicit women only to interrogate them instead. Obviously, we still paid them for their time. Most of them are nice women just trying to make ends meet. I do feel awful when I see them badmouthed in the media. Rich men on the older side of middle-aged are monsters to the vulnerable and it’s not their fault that they’re poor with only one thing to turn to. 

“Most of those women agreed that there are certain ‘creeps’ that even the most desperate women know not to accept soliciting from,” he explains, gripping the sleeve of my coat as he always does when realising the solution to something from a case that’s tying him in knots. “Whether it’s because they demand too much for too little, try to make the relationships emotional, or that they’re excessively violent during sex. I think that she _ was _ scared, you’re right. She was obviously terrified of one of these well-known ‘creeps’ who attempted to gain her trust with small gifts and then murdered her.”

“Jesus Christ,” I breath. “How… that’s despicable.”

George sighs and presses his hand over my own. “I know.”

I lift the churro box and he pulls away the paper from our laps, folding away the paper into his coat. “People should have the decency to not get murdered around Christmas.”

Of course that’s what he would say. 

We sit in silence for a moment, then he leans over to me. “No one’s looking.”

We kiss, hard and messy and fast, and it tastes of cinnamon and brown sugar and strawberry gum, warm against the biting London cold.

* * *

“Alex,” he says gleefully as we pass a bookstore, and his eyes light up. “We _ have _ to go in, goodness!”

I am grateful for the heating that hums loudly in the heart of every commercial building, so I allow him to grab the sleeve of my coat and haul me inside.

Once inside, I see what attracted George’s attention. The newest editions of the Sherlock Holmes books. While he frets over the new designs on the covers and whether or not the writing inside has been adapted, I notice something.

_ A Figure In Hiding,_ reads the book title. The newest _ Hardy Boys _book. With a gasp, I snatch it up and start reading it right there in the shop.

George snaps his fingers before my face. “Alex! Hastings! Anyone there?”

“Oh!” I shake my head. “Sorry. I got distracted.”

“I can see that. Going to buy that? You had better, the shopkeeper is giving you a funny look.”

I walk to the register with the new, shiny-covered book in my hands. Just as I’m handing over a note, George puts his hand over my own. “No, no, it’s my treat,” he says.

The shopkeeper raises an eyebrow but shrugs and takes George’s money. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he says. 

“Have a good day,” George replies, and races out of the book shop with me hot on his heels.

I fumble in my pocket and thrust some coins at him. “Here. You can’t buy me things, George.”

“I jolly well can, Hastings,” he says with a huff, taking the money and dropping it into my pocket. “I’m rich. _ And _ I rather like the young man I happen to be gifting the book to.”

I clutch the book tighter and then, with a glance left and a glance right around the deserted street, I hold it up to the side of my face to disguise from the shopkeeper that I’m leaning in and kissing George on the cheek.


End file.
